Recently, a two-way, high speed, high volume, information "superhighway" has begun to evolve which has the potential to reach every American home and business. It is anticipated that this electronic information superhighway could generate as much as 321 billion dollars in new net GNP growth over the next sixteen years within the United States.
The substantial deployment of fiber optics by telephone and CATV companies has created an infrastructure capable of transmitting billions of bits of data per second through these networks. Advancements in digital video compression technologies further make it practical to digitize and send high-quality full motion video in addition to audio, text and graphics over these networks.
The confluence of digital signal processing, microelectronics and electro-optic technologies will permit the deployment of interactive switched digital broadband networks and the distribution of two-way, real time, interactive programming and services. As the cost of data storage and processing is reduced, these networks will become increasingly cost effective, providing unlimited opportunities for businesses to develop new products and services and to deliver their current offerings more efficiently.
One of the biggest opportunities which exists for data and information transmission over this superhighway is the potential for the transmission of data, messages and information to computer terminals and monitors during their inactive periods. Such transmissions could include advertisements, printable coupons and interactive database search features. Such a system could further perform the function of a screen saver.
Screen savers have been in existence since the mid-1980's. Screen savers were developed to prevent a phosphor image from being burned onto a CRT screen during prolonged periods of non-usage. Typically, a screen saver comprises a prestored multi-media presentation which comes onto the screen after a prescribed period of non-usage by the user. Screen savers reside in the system software and use approximately 100 kilobytes of RAM. Screen savers often provide an eye-pleasing color pattern of random geometric shapes.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,184 entitled Methods For Displaying An Integrating Commercial Advertisements For Computer Software discloses a system directed to adding commercial advertisements for different screen types. In this patent, the advertisements are hard coded into the software. The hard coded advertisements further do not function as screen savers and the system is not interactive. Further, in this embodiment, the software developer gets the revenue for placing the advertisement rather than the network owner.
It would be desirable to provide a message transmission system which could be both an interactive and searchable database and function as a screen saver. The present invention is directed to a device for providing on-line interactive advertising or messaging which can perform the function of a screen saver. In accordance with the present invention, a series of logos, messages, or advertisements are, for example, transmitted to the computer display when a computer is left inactive for a set period of time. In this respect, the present invention functions as a screen saver and prevents screen damage. The present invention is thus directed to a system and technology for placing messages such as advertisements on a local terminal during periods when the terminal is not in use. These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the summary and detailed description which follow.